The Official Fanfiction Academy of Chrono Trigger
by DDR Freak
Summary: The characters of Chrono Trigger have decided that if they want decent fanfic written about them, they'd have to pound it into writers' heads personally and literally. The fanfic University concept is copyright (c) Miss Cam.
1. And So It Begins

**The Official Fanfiction Academy of Chrono Trigger**

** Chapter One **

**And So It Begins**

"Ow ow ow-ow-ow-ow" Charlotte moaned. Saying that she hurt was the understatement of the year. 

What? she thought. The last thing she could remember was a large party at her friend Becca's house, and the writing of some fanfiction that she couldn't remember anything about. 

Suddenly, there was a flash of negative light, and an imposing figure stood in her bedroom door. 

"Are you Angleic_lair'?" he asked.

"It's Angelic_layer'," she corrected. He blinked and checked a piece of paper he held. 

"It says Angleic_lair' here," he said, and then sighed. "Another person who forgets about spell check."

If she weren't in so much pain, Charlotte would've asked who this person was, and why he was avoiding light like a vampire.

"Right," he sighed heavily. "You've been accepted into the Official Fanfiction Academy of Chrono Trigger, or OFAC. It's not difficult, believe me. Anyway, here is your application." A rather large sheet of paper glided from his gloved hand and landed on Charlotte's dresser.

"I would suggest packing something. If you place it by your bedside you won't have to owe money. Someone will pick you up later. I would not forget, as Miss Cerberus is about lending money."

With another painful flash of negative light, the man was gone. Charlotte blinked, and digested the new information. Once her brain finally registered it (which was about twenty minutes later), she realized that she had just had a strange person appear right in her room. She vaguely considered contacting the authorities, but forgot that because she would have to move to get to the phone. Moving was not high on her list of priorities right then. At least, it wasn't until she felt a rather agonizing rumble in her stomach. 

Charlotte grabbed the edge of her bed and pulled herself up. She landed with a surprisingly loud thud. Then, clutching her dresser's corner with both hands, she began to drag herself to her feet. Unfortunately, the application form was right where her hands were. They slipped off the dresser, and she landed on the floor again. The paper floated down and lay perfectly on her aching back. 

Charlotte sat there for a few minutes, cursing everything from dressers to application forms to weird people. After a moment of silence, Charlotte felt a sharp prick in her side. She sat up very quickly and succeeded in hurting her back even further.

"Did you just poke me with your edges?" she accused the paper. It didn't reply. 

She attempted to ignore the application form. But, before she knew it, a pen was in her hand and she was writing her name on the paper and filling out the questions. On the back of the enrollment form there was list of supplies. Charlotte skimmed it rather quickly. The materials were basic things, like pencils, pens, some kind of bag, heavily stocked first-aid kit 

She began to gather some clothes and things to shove in a suitcase. Then, she paused to consider that last item. 

"A heavily stocked first-aid kit?" she asked. "What I am officially afraid. I was scared before because I was actually taking this seriously, but now I think I'm off the deep end."

She turned back to where she had set the application form, but all that was left was the list of supplies. The other side was completely blank. 

"Itdisappeared," she blinked a few times and turned the sheet over in her hands. 

[A/N- I don't own Chrono Trigger. Nor do I own the concept of a fanfiction university, for it belongs to the incredible Miss Cam. I am not worthy to shine her shoes.]


	2. Miss Cerberus Prepares

****

Chapter Two

In Which Miss Cerberus prepares for the Coming of the Students and their Activities of the Lusting Kind

**Boom**!

There was an incredibly large explosion outside the walls of OFAC. Two of the teachers, Lavos and Dalton, were at it again.

"So it begins…" Miss Cerberus muttered into her pillow. "I…need…coffee…"

She dragged herself out of bed, shoved her feet into black fuzzy slippers, and shuffled out to the entertainment section of the Staff Room. It doubled as a dining room. The rest of the teachers were already up, and looked nearly as worse as she did. Except Marle. Marle was always perfect. Her blonde hair was already combed and brushed, for crying out loud. Miss Cerberus's green hair was incredibly messy. Crono was practically asleep in his tea (yes, he drinks tea), and Lucca _was _asleep in hers. Robo was rather cheerful, though. But, of course, he's a robot. He doesn't need to sleep.

"Good morning, Miss Cerberus," he beeped. "Here is your coffee." He handed her a mug of coffee that was larger than her head. 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you…" she said, and accepted the mug. It was drained in three seconds flat.

Magus was standing in a corner, as dark and mysterious as always. The poor, poor man. Due to his gorgeous blue hair, dark, mysterious ways, and incredible magic, fangirls have been after him for _years. _

"Good morning!" Oma-Ona called happily. She pulled on her fuzzy white bathrobe and shuffled into the room. 

"Hello, Eskimo Joe," Miss Cerberus yawned. It was surprising that she still could yawn, for after drinking so much coffee most people's back teeth would be wiggling from the caffeine. 

Oma-Ona Jonawitty Double-day (also known as 'Eskimo Joe' by some of the staff) was the Keeper of the Peace at OFAC. When activity of the lusting kind (or anything else, for that matter) happened, Oma-Ona was called to help deal with it. She also taught the class, 'Mythological Gods and Goddesses 101'. (It's categorized as DPCSIC, Decently Pointless Classes that are Still In the Curriculum.) Her long black hair with bright red highlights was slightly messy, but not nearly as bad as Cerberus's. Oma-Ona was going to be a student, but it was discovered that she had been sent an application form by mistake. Thus, she was offered a job, and accepted. Eskimo Joe was a transfigurer. She was going to be rather handy for when students try to sneak into the staff section. They wouldn't know what hit them. Literally.

"Hi…" Selima muttered sleepily. Selima was the therapist and nurse at OFAC. She yawned and shuffled out into the kitchen for something to eat, her black hair bobbing slightly as she walked. There seemed to be a plethora of black-haired staff. Hmmm. Then, yet another odd character emerged from her room. Her name was Miss Semp, and she was a fairy. Semp was also a teacher of DPCSIC. One of her classes was the extremely odd 'Raising Vaccae 101'. 

"'Morning," she yawned and flitted into the kitchen, nearly colliding with Selima.

"Have you finished sorting the applications yet?" Eskimo Joe asked, far too brightly for around three in the morning.

"Er…" Miss Cerberus stammered. "Um, y..yeah…! So, did anyone turn the security system on…? Heh?" Assistant Head Mistresses do not stutter.

The rest of the conscious staff shot her questioning looks.

"A…a bit of it's done, I mean…" she said. There were more looks.

"**OKAY! OKAY! **I haven't started yet! Are you happy now?" she cried. "Gods, you're all _vultures._"

At that moment, Miss Cerberus was buried completely by a pile of application forms.

[A/N- I don't own Chrono Trigger, it belongs to Square. I don't even own the concept of a fanfiction university. It belongs to the most respected and beloved Miss Cam. I am not worthy to tie her shoes. I own nothing, but you do, yay (that's great), now you can't sue.]


	3. O Come All Ye Fangirls

****

Chapter 3

O Come All Ye Fangirls

Charlotte blinked. She had sat down by her partially packed bag, wondering where the stupid enrollment form went. It had disappeared. Charlotte sighed and crawled back into her bed. Perhaps sleep would cure insanity. Her sleep was rather short lived. A bright light radiated from her closet.

Indeed, a white light was flashing rather painfully from the general direction of her closet. Charlotte stumbled over to get a decent look at it. When she opened her closet door, there was a great flash of white light that was more painful than she thought possible, and she was gone. Her bag suddenly zipped itself, and disappeared with a puff of pinkish smoke.

When Charlotte opened her eyes, she was in waist-deep water. It was extremely cold, to be blunt. It was also dark. The time was 4:57 am, to be precise. There was another girl a few yards away from where she stood. She had dark hair, and even darker eyes. She was dressed in a strange tunic-like thing, with a leather belt across her chest. There were pouches on the belt, each containing a silver bell of variying sizes. Charlotte waded over to her.

"Where **are **we?" she cried. The girl turned around, spraying water everywhere and drenching Charlotte further. Charlotte was now more soaked than she thought possible. 

"How should I know?" the girl replied. She began to wring water from her hair. 

Charlotte waded out of the pond, pissed off about being there in the first place. Once she was out of the pond, however, she saw a most startling scene. 

There was a large, pleasant red brick building standing in the middle of a very large estate. And on this estate, there were people. Most were teenage girls, with a few boys here and there. Yet, still, that was not the most startling. 

They were standing upon a gorgeous floating isle. It was then that Charlotte found just how far eyes could bulge. They went rather far.

Then, from the giant mahogany doors, a figure appeared. She was kind of short (but wore boots to attempt to be taller), with a shock of spiked green hair. Those whom had the misfortune of being near her saw that she grinned. It would have been rather welcoming, had it been on anyone else. 

Most people present assumed they had gone insane. Going insane would've been better than what was to come.

After that, things got stranger (if that was even possible). A fairy flew up to the green haired girl, dodging between the branches of two cherry trees. An actual _fairy, _complete with a pointed wand and blue wings. She was extremely small, and her wings were larger than she was. The fairy spoke with the girl for a moment before flitting into the building. The girl cleared her throat, and shouted to all the students.

"Hello!" she shouted. "If you would all please follow me into the building, everything will be explained. Thank you, come this way!" She turned and walked through the huge doors. From lack of anything semi-sane to do, and with most of the people thinking that they were dreaming, the soon-to-be students of OFAC followed her into the building.

The Academy was positively gigantic. The floors were of a lovely plush carpet, its walls were a dark cream color, and the high ceilings were peaked and gorgeous. The Academy would not be quite so well thought of later in the year, of course.

"Wow…" Charlotte breathed as she followed the girl closely. She tapped someone with long, dark hair on the shoulder. 

"Where are we?" she asked quietly. The girl turned around. To Charlotte's immense surprise, the girl was half _cheese. Bleu cheese._

"I don't know," the girl sniffed, obviously upset over her current form. She looked Charlotte up and down.

"You're so lucky!" she cried. "Why did _you_ have to come out right?" 

"Erm…what were you?" Charlotte asked, dodging that last question. 

"I was half-elf, half-moon…" she sniffed.

"Ah, yes, you must be Ithil, then," a voice in front of them cheerily said. Ithil nodded her head. They hadn't noticed that the green-haired girl was eavesdropping on their conversation.

"It didn't come out wrong," she explained in a slow voice, as though talking to a small child. "You asked to be half-moon. You are."

"I'm half _BLEU CHEESE!_" Ithil cried. 

"Well, naturally," she replied. "Although, of course, we could change it…"

"PLEASE!" Ithil begged. 

"On one condition…" she continued. 

"Anything! **Any**thing!"

"Very well, then, dear," she said, and smiled a grin that could be most accurately described as...toothy. "The mini-Lavi need to be fed and polished. They eat bleu cheese and steak that is medium-rare with their own special white wine sauce. That will be your job for three months. Ah, here we are!"

There was another set of large, imposing doors. An ominous feeling began to creep into Charlotte's stomach. It was the feeling she got every time she stepped into her English class. (That teacher always _did _hate her.) It was a feeling of impending doom… a feeling that she would be in a rather, well, _uncomfortable _position very soon. That was not a comforting thought.

[A/N- See previous Author's Note.

I own nothing, but you do, yay (that's great), now you can't sue.]


	4. Fairies, Magi, and Mini Lavi, oh My!

****

Chapter 4 

Fairies, Magi, and Mini-Lavi, oh My!

The Great Hall was, well, a great hall. It had rows of long tables with silver dishes and the whole nine yards. At the very front of the hall another table was set horizontally. There were numerous ominous figures sitting there. Oh dear. This was not going to be pleasant.

The girl motioned for them to sit rather hurriedly before standing on a podium. She cleared her throat, and spoke in a surprisingly loud voice.

"Welcome to OFAC," she said pleasantly. "I use the term 'welcome' as loosely as possible. I am Miss Cerberus, the Assistant Head Mistress of this fanfiction academy. Those whom sit behind me are my colleagues, and your teachers. Learn their names, respect them.

"Let me lay down the Law, before we continue," Miss Cerberus continued. "Firstly: Write fanfiction (unauthorized, of course) and I eat will your spleen. Secondly: Show disrespect towards **any** of the Staff here, which includes stampedes, I will give you detention, and consider eating your spleen. Detentions will be as…_unpleasant _as they are within my power to make them. Thirdly: Do you homework. Or else. I'll leave it at that."

The fairy that had talked with Cerberus earlier shot an odd glance towards one of the other teachers, whom shrugged in reply. 

"Fourthly: Skip detention and you might as well kill yourself right then. Lastly: Mess with my security system, and I will cut off your head, slice you in two with a spoon, tar, feather you, then eat your spleen with fava beans, a biscotti and a nice chai latte. Any questions?" Miss Cerberus finished. 

The Great Hall was completely silent.

"Good. I wasn't going to answer any," Miss Cerberus smiled. The fairy gave Miss Cerberus an amusedly exasperated look. It was extraordinarily interesting, as no one else knew that someone could be amused and exasperated at the same time. She apparently knew that Miss Cerberus would never really eat anyone's spleen. It was all a part of verbal intimidation. 

"Well, I say we should get some breakfast, shall we?" Miss Cerberus said. Magus waved a gloved hand. 

Suddenly (incredibly), the tables filled with food. There were bagels, pancakes, waffles, anything you could possibly want. Alright, they were undoubtedly sadistic, but at least the food was good. 

Charlotte stuffed herself. Sure, it was only two hours after the party that she had eaten a large cheese pizza (and somehow had not gotten dairy poisoning). But, of course, a little thing like the capacity of the stomach could be ignored in the face of calorie-loaded food. 

******

After breakfast, the students were split into sections and led to their dormitories by the teachers. Charlotte shuffled along behind Miss Cerberus, only half-aware of her surroundings. She was as thus when a pillar met her squarely on the forehead. 

"Gak!" she cried, and fell backwards. 

"Watch for the pillars," Miss Cerberus said with an amused smile. "They like to move. Frequently."

A few of the students cast nervous glances around at the walls. Fortunately, the walls did not like to move very much. 

**Boom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

The ground suddenly shook with the force of what seemed to be a very powerful blast. Miss Cerberus and the students were knocked right off their feet. They all landed rather uncomfortably. Gravity still was present in the realm of the insane. Extra punctuation rained down upon the startled students. 

"Oh, someone _is_ in trouble…" Cerberus clucked from her position on the floor. Charlotte sat with her face in the plush carpet and watched little yellow stars float around her head. 

Miss Cerberus whipped something out of a large pocket. It looked like a cell phone that had gone through the wash a few times and had been fixed by someone that was trying to build a nuclear warhead, but didn't have the foggiest idea of how to do it. 

"Oma-Ona," she said into the phone. "Please tell me you felt that."

"Yep," someone's voice floated softly out of the phone.

"Have you taken a look?" 

"It's just Magus," Oma-Ona replied. "There was a stampede, and you know his temper."

"They're still alive, right?" Cerberus asked. "He didn't kill them…did he?"

There was a pause. "I think they're alive."

The stars stopped spinning around Charlotte's head, and the other students looked at each other with very wide eyes.

"Get them to Selima," Miss Cerberus instructed. 

"Is that safe?" Oma-Ona asked.

Cerberus shrugged. "She's only _half_ vampire. Selima doesn't even like blood. It's an acquired taste, so I've heard."

The students' eyes went wider. Their nurse was _half vampire._

Fortunately for them, Selima did not like blood, and was a very good nurse and psychiatrist. 

"Erm…Cerberus?"

"What?"

"The…uh…east wing's first dorm hall…is slightly…scorched," Oma-Ona said, in attempt to put it delicately. It failed brilliantly. 

"How much is slightly?" Cerberus said with a dangerous kind of calm in her voice.

"Um…blackened…and…partially not…with us anymore…"

"Right…" Miss Cerberus replied, her voice dripping with forced sugary-sweetness. "Send the soot spirits up, and tell Magus to see me later." She pressed a button, and shoved the phone back into her pocket.

She stood up. 

"Come on," she said irritably, suddenly put into a very bad mood. "We haven't got all day."

The students scrambled to their feet just as Cerberus started down the north wing dorm hall. 

She stopped in the middle of the cream-colored hall. 

"Here are your dorms. This wing has three halls," Cerberus said. "Your names are on the door. Go. Now."

They shuffled through the hallways, dodging the moving pillars. Charlotte walked up to a door. It was a rather plain door, with a silver nameplate on the front. Two names were written in the plate. 

Lilathia the Vampire

Jacques Letourneau

Charlotte smiled to herself. Jacques was a French guy that loved garlic and crosses, and had holy water all over the place. Lilathia was going to have a _great _time with that guy. 

She wandered over to another door. There was a girl standing in front of it. She had silvery hair, a pretty face, and pale skin. 

"Are you Charlotte Albshire?" she asked. Charlotte nodded. 

"I'm Hikari," the girl said with a smile. "I'm your roommate." 

Miss Cerberus walked over. 

"They're mingling," she said with a smile and a slightly better mood, and surveyed the scene. "Good."

The two girls looked at each other with raised eyebrows, then turned to the two girls that were engaged in a fistfight over who got the bed by the window. Rose had pinned her roommate, Dott, and was in the process of strangling her. 

Miss Cerberus's smile fell and smashed on the floor. Her anger began to build. Charlotte and Hikari slipped into their dorm, and secured the door. They peeked out under the door.

"**Get in your dorms _NOW_!**" Cerberus screamed with the force of a class five hurricane. "**Or I will see you all in _detention_! You have five seconds!**" 

The students' fights stopped instantly. They stared, dumbfounded, for a moment, then charged into their dorms for their lives. For, of course, their lives _were_ on the line.

"Good," Miss Cerberus said pointedly, and marched down the hall towards the hidden Staff Section. A black thundercloud hovered over her head, randomly shooting out lightning that scorched the walls.

[A/N- See previous previous A/N. The only things I truly own are Miss Cerberus, some of the students, and the black thundercloud that hovers over Cerberus's head. Oma-Ona belongs to my friend. Miss Semp belongs to another friend. I think I might own a moving pillar, but I can't remember which one...

I own nothing, but you do, yay (that's great), now you can't sue.]


	5. Insanity in the Realm of the Insane

Chapter 5 

** Insanity in the Realm of the Insane**

                Sleep was difficult to come by in the Realm of the Insane.  Dalton and Lavos had their (minor) squabbles in the early morning, which was then accompanied by the ringing of the bell.  Actually, it tended to be the strangling of the bell-ringer, even though most of the academy was already awake.  Normally, Queen Zeal, who could sleep through almost anything, carried this out.  

            **_BONGGGGG!  BONGGGGG!_**

****"OUCH!" Charlotte yelped as a letter 'g' hit her on the head.  It wasn't the sound that woke you…it was the extra punctuation and the extra letters.  Insanity was omnipotent in OFAC.  

            **_BONGGGGG! BO---_**

****"_ACcckkkKKKkkk__!"  There went another bell-ringer.  They were difficult to find.  _

            "Is it morning already?" Hikari asked sleepily.  She yawned and rolled out of bed.  

            Thud.  

            Charlotte sighed, and then followed suit.

            Splat.

            That's curious, Charlotte thought vaguely.  Normally, people don't go 'splat'…

            She opened her eyes lazily.  It was suddenly very cold, and very white.  Charlotte looked blearily around her.

            Whaaa?

            She was sitting in three feet of snow.  Once more, her eyes bugged out very far.  Then, she let loose a scream that could be heard all the way up in Zeal.

*************

            Charlotte grumbled as she trudged through the snow.  She was looking for a transporter-type thingy that would send her back up to Zeal.  Sure, Charlotte had wanted to see more of the world, but this was _not what she had in mind._

            Stupid random plotholes… 

            Charlotte couldn't see three inches in front of her nose.  She tried waving her hand in front of her face, but all she saw was a slightly grayish blur.  

            She trudged on.  Suddenly, her face collided with something very solid.  It was a wall.  Not just any wall, but the wall to the transporter thing that would take Charlotte the Almost-Popsicle back to the Academy.  After a few moments of grumbling, Charlotte used the door to get through a solid obstruction.

            Stupid wall…stupid solid—thing…stupid cold…stupid snow…

            A bright beam of light surrounded Charlotte as she was transported to the floating islands of Zeal.  Warm air flowed over her chilled limbs when she materialized at the edge of the Academy's island.

*************

            Charlotte walked through the quiet halls of the Academy.  No one wandered in the halls, there were no friends calling loud greetings, no fangirls plotting how to attract their lust object's attention… there was only a forbidding sort of silence.  Charlotte shivered in her soaked pajamas, while wandering aimlessly through the deserted halls.  

            Then, someone walked down the hall.  Crono.

            Curses… thought Charlotte the Crono-Luster.

            "What are you doing wandering through the halls?" he demanded.  "You should be in the Orientation meeting!"

            He grabbed her forearm and marched her right up to the doors of the Great Hall.

            "You'd better try to stay low.  Cerberus will _not be pleased."_

            Charlotte nodded, and then cracked the door open.  Cerberus was explaining something to the students, but she was pointing at a diagram.  While her back was turned, Charlotte slipped in, and sat quickly down in a seat.  The Great Hall's tables were still in place, and most students seemed to have packets.  Charlotte amused herself by staring at the walls.  They were the same cream color as the rest of the University, and there was a decorative molding on the baseboards and ceiling.  The molding was some sort of dark wood.    

            "Do we all understand?" Cerberus asked.

            "Yes," the students chorused.

            "Moving on, then," Cerberus said lightly.  "Lavos has something he would like to say."

            Lavos (in his Lavos Core state) walked over to the middle of a raised dais.  

            "I would like to say that my Evil class will be starting tomorrow," 

            There was a large cry of protest from the audience.

            "_What?_"

            "Yes, my class _will _start tomorrow, and you _will _be there," Lavos said with great dignity.

            "But…but…that's so _evil!_" a student, Circe, cried.

            "Of course it's evil.  I _am _evil, after all!" Lavos responded.

            "You're not evil, you insignificant little parasite!  _I _am the most evil of all!" Dalton stated, and strode up to Lavos.

            "_You?__  Evil?  I laugh at your pathetic attempts at evil!  You couldn't even keep a couple of kids from beating not only you, but you __and your minions up!" Lavos retorted._

            "Who are you to talk?" Dalton shouted.  "They beat the snot out of you, too!"

            "At least I died with dignity!"

            "Dignity?  What dignity?  You practically rolled over and died!" Dalton responded.

            "Did not!"

            "Did so!"

            "Did not!"

            "Did so!"

            "Did _not!"_

            "Did _so!"_

            The argument ended as they always did.  Three flaming meteor showers and two fireballs later, the students were huddled under tables while Lavos and Dalton once more tried to be more evil than the other.  They both failed at it most extravagantly.

            "You little sniveling, insignificant, moronic maggot!  How _dare you mock me!"  Lavos shouted, and more flaming meteors rained down upon the Great Hall._

            "You spiky porcupine!  You're pathetic!  My _grandmother _could make meteors better than you!"

            With a rapid gesture from Cerberus, the other teachers began to round up the students and lead them out of the Hall while the meteor shower stopped briefly.  

            Unfortunately, the meteors started again.  

            Charlotte crouched under the table, thanking the Powers That Be that she wasn't as unfortunate as poor Josh.  The poor mage had been knocked out from under a table, and couldn't find any others that would let him in.  He had to make do with running for his life while dodging flying objects.  

            Lucca managed to weave her way through the Hall.  She poked the students.

            "If you would like to get out of this mess, follow me," she whispered.  "And _do try not to be hit.  I really don't want to have to drag someone out of here."_

            After a few minutes of general chaos, the entire Academy was evacuated from the Great Hall.  Injuries were mild.  The only somewhat-serious injuries were sustained by Josh.  After all, one could only take so many fast-flying rocks to the head.  Fortunately, his concussion was relatively light, and he had been sent down to Selima to be patched up.   

            The students stood in the hallway outside of the Hall, waiting with surprising obedience.  The teachers were having a mini staff meeting on what was to be done.  

            Brief snippets of the conversation were overheard by those closest to the assembly.  Most of the conversation was either over where to shove the students, what to do with Dalton and Lavos, and Miss Cerberus nearly weeping over her poor Great Hall.

            Then, Miss Cerberus's cell phone rang.

            "Hello?" she said into the phone.  "Okay.  Yeah.  _What?  I'll be right over!"_

            She began to give orders in a very sharp tone.

            "Get me as many Mini-Lavi as you can!" she ordered Miss Semp and Oma-Ona.

            The students were very confused.

            "Could you tell us what's happened?" Lucca asked, slightly irritated.

            "The Harry Potter continuum's broken.  Meir Brin has called for some help," she explained hurriedly.  She reached into another pocket and brought out the Big Freakin' Gun ©.  She snapped the ammo into place just as the Mini-Lavi arrived.

            "Great, that should be enough," she nodded.  "Copy-Write, Shcala, Mistic, and Darkmatter, stay up front.  The rest of you, fall into the student-hunt formation I told you about!  _Now!"_

            The Lavi fell into position.  Cerberus held up the Gate Key.

            "I'll be back eventually," she said to Oma-Ona.  "Hold down the fort, alright?"

            Oma-Ona nodded, and Cerberus disappeared into a Gate.

            The students looked around in mild boredom.  Oma-Ona cleared her throat loudly.

            "Hey!" she cried.  "Hey, students!  We're going to dismiss you by last name!  You can head to the Library, Arcade, or wherever!  The Arcade has just been put in on the second floor, right across from the Library.  Stay _out of the Great Hall._

            "Now, A-J, get out of here!"

            After a relatively short while, the students had cleared out.  Most went to the new Arcade.

            The staff walked back to the Staff Section, their thoughts mostly on Cerberus and the outcome of the battle for the Harry Potter-verse.

            "Hey, Lucca," Oma-Ona said worriedly, "Cerberus forgot her ammo, didn't she?"

            Lucca sighed and rubbed her temples.  "I think she did.  Well, at least she has the energy bolts I installed."

            "Did she replace the battery?"

            "I certainly hope so."

            [A/N- See previous A/N.  Meir Brin owns herself, and she also owns the Harry Potter Fanfiction Academy.  I own the Big Freakin' Gun (BFG, for short).  Also, Mini-Lavi and Moving Pillars are available for adoption!  E-mail me, and I'll send you a list of the names.]


	6. The Many Forms of Evil, and When Fairies...

****

Chapter 6—

The Many Forms of Evil, and When Fairies Attack

The morning dawned bright and clear. The morning seemed to promise an infinite possibilities and good times. Then, the bell-ringer was strangled, and the Academy was brought back to reality, however bizarre that it was.

Beauty can be deceiving. It was that beautiful morning that the first Evil 101 (Original, Ain't It?) class was to be. Charlotte awoke with sunlight streaming through her window, and the sound of birds chirruping softly. She began to think that perhaps life at the Academy wasn't quite so bad.

She was wrong. Predictably wrong.

Evil 101's classroom was already filled. It was the first lesson of the year, and most students wanted to make a good impression. It was exactly at seven o' clock that Lavos walked into the room.

"This is your Evil class. Let's start this off by defining evil," Lavos said, his tone almost…pleasant. "What exactly is 'evil'?"

He saw a sea of dumbfounded faces. 

"I'm evil!" a student cried.

There was a collective cringe from the rest of the students. This would not end well.

"And why are you evil?" Lavos asked with a honeyed voice.

"Because, like, OMG, mi frends all say, like, 'Your like, like, so evil, or something!'! And I'm like, 'Yeah, like, I am, like, so evil!' And, like, my, like, teachers? They all, like, died? Like, they didn't like my speak, or whatever? And…"

"All right! All right! I get the point!" Lavos cried. His ears were bleeding, along with the rest of the class's. He forced a smile onto his face, and continued with the lesson. He quickly handed out very thick books to everyone in the class.

"There are numerous types of evil," he said, wiping blood off of his ear. "There is Classic Evil, which would be the people that went to Evil Med School and passed. They are normally slightly insane, creative, and very evil. They also take other people's ideas and say that they were their own…"

Lavos continued on the different types of evil. He covered the Psychotic Evil, the Evil Genius, the Sadistic Evil, the Sadistically Annoying Evil, and the Pyromaniac Evil. He assigned three chapters to read as an in-class assignment. There was a seven page pop quiz on said three chapters. 

"Read through the quiz before you begin," Lavos instructed somewhat absent-mindedly, and then began to read a book titled _'Dr. Evil Overlord's Ways to Survive by your Wits Alone: Book Three Thousand and Twenty Two point Five'_.

Charlotte stared at her quiz. It was still blank. She didn't bother to read through it.

_Categorize the characters by Evil Type._

Professor Moriarty __________ 

Professor Who-y What-y? Charlotte thought, staring at the paper as though she was trying to burn holes in it. After a moment's consideration, she skipped the first five questions.

__

List the specific types of evil, their attributes, and the square root of ninety-three.

What does the square root of ninety-three have to do with evil?! Charlotte's mind wailed.

Thinking fast, she began to scribble answers down on the lines. She looked over at the girl next to her. Her hair was a strange mix of brown and blue, and her clothes were…odd. Nevertheless, she sat proudly with her test face down on the desk.

__

Stupid fast people…

"That should be easily enough time," Lavos said briskly, and snapped his book shut. "At the top of your paper you should have written 'Icky Icky Icky Neow wum ping'. If you do not have that on your paper, and you have actually filled out the questions, then you have failed this test."

__

"What?" cried a girl with silver hair. "How did we fail?!"

"Look at the last page of the test."

There, written in small print at the bottom of the seventh page were these words:

'At the top of your page, write 'Icky Icky Icky Neow wum ping'. You do not have to fill out this test.'

Charlotte filed this test away mentally as the Most Sadistic Test Ever Made.

"Don't bother to pass them in, I already know your grades," Lavos said with a rather evil-looking smile. The tests on the desks actually began to shrivel and burn. Whether that was from the evil smile or the bad breath that accompanied it, none could tell.

Then there was homework.

"Let's see…" Lavos said to himself with a rather twisted smile, "what should I give the class for homework…? They must not have understood the material, since they did so poorly on the test…"

The class waited with bated breath, and leaned forward slightly in their seats.

_Please… no homework… please… please… oh, please…no homework…_Charlotte thought fervently. _Please…_

"I'd say that a seven-page essay on an evil category… single-spaced… with people or characters that fit into said category… Yes, that will do nicely… Due… in four days. Dismissed."

_Gaaaaaahh…_

Charlotte walked out of the classroom, her bag dragging along the floor. She was mildly surprised that the thing didn't bust at the seams with the fifty-pound '_The Evil Method_' shoved in it.

The hallway was crowded. Very, very crowded. Charlotte's mood began to go in a downward spiral of doom. She was jostled by everything from ten-foot-tall tree spirits to two-foot sprites. After grumbling impressively for a while, she came to a spot that felt as though the air was being charged with energy. The entire crowd stopped, stared, and waited for the next bit of insanity to arrive. Then, a portal opened up. It was about ten feet above the crowd. Out of it came… Miss Cerberus.

Cerberus looked a bit worse for the wear. Her arms were looped around to Mini-Lavi, who slowly (and somewhat melodramatically) reduced altitude. The crowd parted. 

"What _are _you people doing? Move along! Move along!" a voice cried from down the hall. Oma-Ona was swiftly dodging through the crowd. 

"Come on, get to your—…" she began, but stopped in mid-sentence. She stared for a few moments.

"_Cerby?_"

"Don't call me that!"

"It is Cerby!"

"Have you been listening to a word I've said?"

Those present were treated to the bizarre sight of Oma-Ona giving Miss Cerberus a running hug. Cerberus was completely bowled over, and Oma-Ona practically had her in a headlock.

"_Cerby!_" Oma-Ona cried happily, and tightened her headlock. Miss Cerberus began to turn blue, then a lovely shade of violet.

"Can't…breathe…suffocating…let…go…please…!" Cerberus gasped. 

Then, a figure floated over to the scene that became more interesting by the second. It was Semp. 

With surprising agility and dexterity, she flew down, and zapped Oma-Ona with her wand. 

**_Zzaaaapp!_**

When the smoke cleared, Oma-Ona was lying in a little smoldering pile on the floor. 

"…I think I charged that too much…" Semp said, staring at the little smoking pile that used to be Oma-Ona. 

Then, nothing happened. Miss Cerberus and Semp looked at each other for a moment, then at the students, then back to Oma-Ona. With a determined nod, Cerberus began to hobble away, her arms looped back over the mini-Lavi. 

"You have seen nothing," Semp said in a clear voice to the students. "You will now go back to wherever you want, so long as it isn't here. Now." To make sure that it happened immediately, she held up a slightly sizzling wand in a very threatening manner. Needless to say, the hall cleared out very quickly. Semp sighed as she poked Oma-Ona again. The still-smoldering pile of Oma-Ona disappeared with a 'poof!' and a minty fresh scent. Hopefully Selima hadn't taken the day off…

"…Remind me again why I took this job?" She said as she caught up with Cerberus. 

"The same reason I took my job. An incredibly spontaneous bout of insanity."


	7. If You Give a Fangirl Magic

****

Chapter 7-

If You Give a Fangirl Magic…

Charlotte awoke the next day in her dormitory, right as the bell was sounded. Hastily hopping out of bed, she managed to avoid the falling g's. With eyes still foggy from sleep, or lack thereof, she scanned through her schedule to find the following:

__

Today: Magic 101 @ 7:45 a.m. sharp. Be there, or else.

…I think I like this schedule…I'll never be late… Charlotte thought, smiling slightly to herself. She shoved the slip of parchment into her pocket just as Hikari was hit by an exclamation point and awoke with unpleasant suddenness. 

"I didn't do it!" Hikari cried as Charlotte slammed the door shut.

~**~

Ah, early morning at OFAC. There was nothing more serene than the soft carpet under your feet, the empty, echoing halls, and the windows with a lovely view of a garden. No student knew who owned the garden, or who took care of it. The only clue was a sign that said

__

'Sit, be quiet, and if you litter, I will know.' Ah, OFAC. 

It was early enough that most students were still nursing their early-morning bumps and bruises, so Charlotte pretty much had the entire school to roam, think, and forget that she had fifteen minutes to eat and get to Auditorium 3 on the fourth floor. 

She wandered down through an old corridor. It seemed as though it had never been used. The air was musty and smelt softly of some fragrant wood. Dust covered everything in it, and the lights overhead were dim and gentle. Charlotte walked to the end of the hallway, and stopped before a large, impressive painting. It showed a garden, complete with fruit trees in flower and a pleasant little bench with a small stone fountain. The golden frame was dull with dust, and the colors in the paint were muted slightly. 

_Where did this come from? _Charlotte wondered. The painting seemed slightly… out of place in the insanity that was the Academy. 

Unnoticed by she, there was a white ventilation duct nestled down in a corner. Then, with a shrug, Charlotte turned around and began to try to head for the Great Hall for some breakfast before her class. She had walked about five steps when she heard music being softly played. From what she could hear, it was piano music. Finally coming to the conclusion that she really **didn't **want to know, Charlotte continued down to the Great Hall. Her short time at OFAC had already taught her that if something strange was found, it was always best to just smile, nod, and pretend that you understood completely. Anyway, breakfast was calling.

~**~

Charlotte was just sitting down to a lovely breakfast of bagels and cream cheese when she felt the most irritating prick on her leg. It came from the general area of her pajama pocket. She reached down into it, and produced the schedule. On it was written:

__

In Three Minutes: Magic 101. The current time is: 7:42 a.m. You should get your bum moving, dearie.

Charlotte felt a most incredible jolt in her stomach. She had forgotten completely about her class. She rushed from the table in an explosion of bagels and little tubs of cream cheese, which landed perfectly back where they had been before Charlotte ran like her life depended on it. …For, of course, it did.

_Fourth floor, third Auditorium, fourth floor, third Auditorium… _Charlotte thought as she ran up the stairway. 

_Third floor, fourth Auditorium, third floor, fourth Auditorium… _Charlotte's mental chant had become slightly distorted as she ran up the stairs to the third floor. She found the fourth Auditorium's doors, and stopped at said doors, waiting for her breath to catch up with her. 

Once her heart rate returned to normal and her brain was in a bit more control, Charlotte quietly opened the doors and stepped into the Auditorium. 

The _wrong _Auditorium, as it was. 

Charlotte shrieked as she fell through a plothole and promptly landed somewhere that she shouldn't have been. 

_Oooooooooooooww… _her brain cried in pain. Then, just as suddenly, there was another plothole. In a burst of luck that might not really be luck at all, Charlotte re-appeared in the middle of the _correct _Auditorium just as Magus walked in. 

As most would see it, this was a rather nice bout of luck. However, the sudden stampede of raging hormone-driven fangirls might prove this otherwise.

There was a loud boom, a not-so-brief flash of red flame, and numerous Magus-lusters lay in charred heaps on the floor.

Magus rubbed his temples with one gloved hand. Oh, yes, this was going to be _fun._

He strode up to the front of the Auditorium, cleared his throat, completely forgot what he was originally going to say, and promptly made something up.

"Welcome to Magic 101, the course where, against our better judgement, or lack thereof, all students will be given magic _officially. _The previous magic that you had because of what was written on the applications _will not be successful _until we _give _it to you. Understood?"

There were numerous excited nods.

"All right, then…" he paused a moment to collect his thoughts. "Spekkio, if you would."

Then, out came Spekkio.

"Right…" he cleared his throat. "Miss Raven…"

Raven the vampire walked nervously up onto the auditorium, and stood in front of Spekkio. Then… she was engulfed in flames, and given her magic in the most dramatic way possible.

Mass confusion resulted. Again.

[A/n- Sorry it took me so long to get this thing up. I apologize to anyone who cared. Anyway, please, if anyone (and I mean _any_one) wishes to apply to OFAC, contact me! If anyone wants to adopt a mini-Lavi or a Moving Pillar, contact me as well. …Please?]


	8. Traveling Riverside Blues 101

Chapter 8-

Traveling Riverside Blues… 101

Charlotte awoke in the Hospital Wing of the academy. Her left arm was sprained and bound up nicely, and her head was _really _hurting. She sat up, vaguely confused, stood, and walked around a bit, trying to find someone who wasn't unconscious or otherwise injured by their own stupidity. Eventually, she found Selima, who was tending to a student with a broken arm.

"Ow! Ow! That _hurts, _dammit!" It was a girl Charlotte vaguely recognized from around the halls.

"Of course it hurts, you broke it in three places!" Selima snapped in reply. "Mini-Lavi were never gentle! And they like to play hockey with the students."

Charlotte blinked. 'With the students' obviously must mean 'using the poor buggers as the puck' in the language of the staff.

"Oh, and Miss Albshire, you can leave now," Selima said over her shoulder. "You've just got a sprained wrist, it'll heal up fine." Charlotte almost ran from the room, somehow very glad to be away from the nurse. Selima had a very strange, uncomfortable stare.

Charlotte shuffled down the hallway while reading her schedule. She had 'Traveling Riverside Blues 101', whatever _that _was, in Auditorium 2.

On the way, she shoved through a stampede, dodged two minor explosions, and plugged her ears so as not to hear a plot about breaking into the Staff Section. Without any other incidents, she arrived relatively unharmed at the second Auditorium. Inside, many of the students were awaiting their professor, while gossiping among themselves about gods knew what.

The Auditorium itself was like anyone might expect- painted a drab gray with gray-blue tile, rows of tables in yet another shade of gray with those hard plastic seats. The room was perhaps forty by forty feet, sloping downwards in terraces to an open space at the base, occupied by a desk and a chalkboard. The whole thing was lit by an unidentifiable source, and just trying to identify it was headache-inducing.

Charlotte slid into a seat next to a green haired girl who looked slightly harassed. She opened her mouth to introduce herself, but was cut off by the sudden bang of the double doors as they slammed open.

Up the aisle between the rows of students strode Miss Cerberus. She held a pointer that looked more like a birch switch than a handy instrument to help teach with. When she reached the front of the room, she turned sharply on her heel to face the students.

"Welcome to Traveling Riverside Blues 101," she began. "This course will attempt to teach you people about the geography, flora, and fauna of Guardia throughout the time periods. You will not get off easy in any way. Trust me, I make sure of it."

There was a collective groan from the students.

"And now, we shall begin with," she continued, "the first chapter."

She snapped her fingers, and the undefined light dimmed, leaving the room in gray shadow that was somehow more colorful than the usual shades of gray. With another snap of her fingers, a projection screen unrolled and a projector switched on. Up on the screen was a large map of Guardia in 1000 A.D.

"Now, we'll start in the era the game begins in, and then continue chronologically throughout all the ages," Cerberus said. "There will also be discussions on local flora and fauna in various areas, including some of the more common monsters that appear in the game." The projector zoomed in on Guardia Forest.

"And we'll begin 1000 A.D. in Guardia Forest, the first monster-infested area…"

Cerberus droned on about various monsters, ranging from the Avian Chaos to the Hetake. Projection slides came up on each monster, showing pictures and detailed diagrams.

By that time, most of the students were in a projection-induced haze, half-asleep but still vaguely upright. Eventually, after listening to the buzz of Miss Cerberus's lesson, one poor student fell completely asleep. Her head thudded to the desk, snapping the other students into consciousness and causing Cerberus to stop in her lesson. Thirty frightened lungs took in thirty sharp breaths. Sixty frightened eyes watched the Assistant Head Mistress stride over to the sleeping girl and stood over her like a vulture.

The girl was asleep with her head facedown on the table and her arms stretched out in front of her, hands palm down. She was still completely oblivious to any imminent danger, unfortunately for her. With one swift movement, the pointer went from Miss Cerberus's side to a sharp smack across her knuckles and back again. The student, Compass, yelped in pain and began to curl up into a kind of fetal position in her chair, whimpering. She poked her head up to see who dared strike her, and looked straight at Miss Cerberus and her evil glare. Compass yelped again.

"If there will be no more interruptions, I will continue with the lesson," Miss Cerberus said rather coldly. She strode back up to the front, and continued. Within three minutes the class was back in its doze.

"And we shall end there today," said Cerberus, loudly enough to wake up her half-asleep class. "I should hope you were taking notes. There will be a test tomorrow. Dismissed."

Charlotte blinked, and looked around. The other students were in various states of stunned bewilderment. She turned to the girl next to her, who was muttering something like 'Stupid, stupid, stupid…' repeatedly to herself.

"She said test, didn't she," Charlotte said to her.

"She did."

"We're dead, aren't we."

"Most likely," the girl replied.

"I'm Charlotte," she said, somewhat numbly. "You?"

"Asamoya," the girl said. "Nice to meet you. Sort of."

"We need pie," Charlotte said. "I think I heard that Twist found a way into the kitchens."

"They'll give us pie?"

"Give isn't quite the word for it," she replied, "but it's close enough."

The pair stood up, and headed for the doors with the rest of the crowd. After a bit of pushing and shoving, they managed to get through with only minor bruising.

"Where do we find this Twist guy?" Asamoya asked, rubbing her shoulder where a mini-Lavi poked her on its way by.

"Hospital wing. He's a big Lucca-luster."

"So he's psychotic, too," she said, nodding. "Great."

They headed off towards the Hospital wing, ready to waste their break on the quest for pie.

[A/n- I have returned. Hello again, my readers. It's been far too long since I updated, mostly from a lack of plot ideas, partly from being just plain lazy. I'll try to update more frequently in the future. Read and review, please! Feed your starving author.]


	9. The Quest for Pie

Chapter 9

The Quest for Pie

The Academy was never the same from day to day. There were all sorts of complicated twists in the space-time continuum to allow the thing to even _exist _without many adverse affects on the host continuum. Usually, normal language gives up at this point and has a drink since it really can't explain it.

Think of it this way:

The Academy is hovering _just _outside the boundaries of space/time, preventing the thing from falling prey to degeneration from time gates, plot holes, and general neglect, and from preventing Zeal's Day of Lavos from prematurely ending the Academy. It also keeps anyone inside from actually dying, per se, because if they aren't in the space/time continuum they can't have really existed, thus they couldn't've died- they just kind of… go poof, shall we say, and have to be pulled back with some well-aimed magic. However, at that _same exact time, _they are _just _inside the boundaries of space/time, so that the usual passing of seasons and general existence can occur. …It's actually not like this at all, but it's a damn good lie.

Now, the problem with all this switching, which is an unfortunate side affect of the unstable nature of the Time, is that you can never find _anything. _There are only two exceptions to this rule: the student dormitories, and the Staff Section. However, to maintain the balance between switching in and out of Time _something's _got to move.

Hence, the existence of the Moving Pillars, and why they don't turn up, say, in the Auditoriums. They stay in the general area of the Staff Section and dorm halls.

There is only one real way to get anywhere in the building. It's a very simple concept, one which has been used in other unstable areas, like PPC HQ- the traveling person just forgets where they're going, then they aren't lost and are where they need to be. A lot of people don't realize how nice and easily this works, however, until they have done one thing: gotten hopelessly and undeniably lost.

"Um…" Charlotte looked down one hallway that should've been on the other side of the school. She turned to look down another hall, and found classrooms that she had already passed.

"We're lost," Asamoya said bluntly. "Hopelessly and undeniably lost."

"We are _not _lost, thank you very much," Charlotte replied. "We're just temporarily misplaced."

Asamoya blinked. "That is possibly one of the most _stupid _things I have ever heard."

"I think I've heard of this sort of thing before," Charlotte went on, completely ignoring that comment. "To get un-lost, I think we've got to not pay attention to where we're going. Then we won't be lost."

"I stand corrected," Asamoya said after a moment. "_That _is probably the most stupid thing I've ever heard."

"I'm pretty sure that's how things work around here," Charlotte explained. "It's all about what you think."

"So, according to you, if I think that a mini-Lavi is _not _barreling down the hall towards me hell-bent on breaking all my bones, or at least giving it a good try, then it isn't?"

"Um, no, the minis have kinda already got it into their heads that they exist, so they're staying."

"Damn."

Charlotte paused to consider all the most probable reasons to say 'damn' after that explanation. The number one choice was not nice at all.

"Do I want to turn around?"

"No," Asamoya replied, looking past Charlotte. "You want to run."

So she ran, without looking behind her, partly because she was more interested in getting _away, _mostly because she knew that the view wasn't going to be very pretty. Asamoya had already gotten to be six or seven feet ahead of her, almost to the three-way fork in the halls. She sprinted down the left path; Charlotte turned down the right. The mini, presumably Shcala, possibly Copy-Write, stopped at the split for a second to consider which fangirl to chase down. Then it zoomed down the right hall with redoubled speed.

As she skidded around another corner, Charlotte managed to get a halfway decent look over her shoulder, which only told her that she wasn't running fast enough.

She puffed, her speed faltering, to the end of the hall, and threw herself into a convenient closet, praying to whatever deity might be listening that the mini would pass by. Unfortunately, there was no deity that smiled down on the poor student, although she was pretty sure there were a few doing something else down on her, but it sure as hell wasn't smiling.

The door was half smashed, half-torn off its hinges. And in that doorway hovered a very pissed off mini-Lavi- and that's the worst kind of mini to have.

dash-star-dash

Charlotte woke up in the Hospital wing of the Academy. Miss Selima stood over her, dabbing her swollen eye with a cotton ball soaked with something that stinged, and she wasn't being very gentle.

"First a sprained wrist, now mauled by a mini, and does anyone say 'thank you'?" the nurse muttered darkly. "Of course not. They just go and stampede somebody at the first chance and end up back here. Ungrateful little…" Charlotte didn't hear the rest, as Miss Selima went to get some bandages.

"…don't even get a damn assistant, goddess knows I need one…" the muttering continued in that general pattern for another half-hour, until Charlotte was patched back up.

"Get out of here," Miss Selima said when she was done. "The swelling'll go down in twenty minutes, the bruising a half hour after that." So saying, she pulled the startled Charlotte out of the bed and pushed her towards the door. As she did, Charlotte couldn't help but glance into another clean, white room, where a student sat in bed, looking vaguely familiar…

"Go! Shoo! I've got a student with seven broken ribs and a squished arm to deal with!"

Charlotte turned, trying to stop the insistent pushing, but found herself outside the door anyway. She huffed in frustration. It had just hit her like a half brick- the student in the other room was Twist. Of _course _it was Twist, just because she couldn't talk to him now. Charlotte began to pace, trying to wrack her brains for a plan to get in there without being interrogated by a disgruntled nurse. Fortunately, the answer hit her. Too bad it was quite literally.

The wing's doors opened again, and out came a startled Asamoya, who had been tossed out by the irate Miss Selima. She crashed into Charlotte, sending both students stumbling backwards until they came to the stairwell- then they just fell backwards. And down the steps.

Thud.

There was a snapping sound. Charlotte wasn't quite sure if it came from her ribs or from the door to the Hospital Wing being flung back on its hinges. At the top of the stairwell stood a wrathful Selima. The nurse looked down with some horror and a lot of anger at the two students who lay at the foot of the steps, bandages undone and Asamoya's leg most likely broken. Legs do not bend at such an angle and still work right.

"_What the HELL do you THINK you're DOING!_"

The changes in pitch were severe enough to shatter glass. In fact, a window near her cracked and busted, taking care to be very quiet so as not to anger the nurse further.

_"I just finished patching you up, and you FALL DOWN THE STEPS!" _There was a string of expletives after that which caused the paint to curl and burn on the walls. Selima swept down the stairs (and she could sweep very impressively), dragged the stunned and vaguely broken girls back up the stairwell by various limbs, and pulled the door shut with a bang. Silence then descended on the hall.

"Stay!" Charlotte found herself tossed unceremoniously back onto a cot. Asamoya was dragged into the next room, and Charlotte caught her frightened look just before she disappeared behind a curtain.

Charlotte stood, testing her weight on her ankles and legs. Everything seemed all right, so she proceeded stealthily into the room where Twist was.

She pulled aside the curtain around his bed, and slipped inside.

"Who the hell are you?" Twist blinked up from the bed, somewhat confused. He was a nice-looking guy, in a bookish kind of way. He wore glasses, and they slid down his nose in a ridiculous fashion. He was also sporting a full-body wrapping of gauze and bandages, and seemed to have some very painful bruising.

"Er… Charlotte Albshire," she said awkwardly. "Nice to meet you, I guess. Um… I need you to tell me something."

"Kitchens?" he asked with a grin. "Simple. Head down the hall, go to the left, and concentrate really hard on singing the Spam Song. You'll get there soon enough. Oh, and remember to find the pickle."

"The Spam Song? What's Monty Python got to do with any of it? And pickles?"

"All right, you can sing another song if you like," he sighed. "Anything will do. You can riverdance for all I care, but if you want to get to the damn kitchens you'll forget you're going there."

"Hah!" Charlotte cried in triumph, perhaps a little too loudly. "I knew it! I was right! You _do _have to forget where you're going!"

"Yup," he replied with the indulgent smile of someone who thinks he's talking to a nutter. "Enjoy your pie."

She paused, blinked, and said, "I didn't… I never… how do you know about the pie?"

He tapped the side of his head with a bandaged finger. "I'm psychic. I put that on my enrollment, wouldn'tchaknow. Too bad I got caught sneaking up on Lucca, otherwise I wouldn't be here."

Charlotte thought about that for a moment. "But if you're psychic… shouldn't you have been able to…?"

"See it coming?" he sighed heavily. "Yeah, I though so, too. It doesn't work that way. Trust me."

Charlotte nodded in sympathetic agreement. "I've noticed. They like to make things tough, don't they."

"Yeah…" Twist blinked, and his eyes went a disturbing shade of blue. "Get out of here. Selima is coming back. Er… it won't be nice if she catches you here…" His voice had taken a very strange tone, sort of like two people were talking almost-but-not-quite at the same time- he seemed to be going into some sort of fit. Charlotte, however, needed no more prompting, and rushed out, and managed to get in the vicinity of her cot when Selima returned.

"What are you doing standing there? Sit down!" Charlotte obeyed the still-angry Selima, and sat down. Selima, once again, patched her up, fixing several cracked ribs and various new bruises with some special potion she had- presumably a mid-tonic or something of that nature. Then, Charlotte found herself once again thrown out of the hospital wing. After a few moments, Asamoya came hurtling out of the door as well.

"Ow," she muttered darkly. "That's the second time today I've been kicked out like that."

"Let's not go for three," Charlotte replied, pulling Asamoya to her feet. "I know where the kitchens are."

"Really?" she grinned. "Let's go!"

And so, the students set out yet again in search of pie, towards an uncertain fate.

After about a minute and a half of metaphorically walking into the sunset, Asamoya coughed slightly.

"Um… how exactly do we get there?"

"We sing, Asamoya. We sing."

"…Just how much painkiller did that nurse give you?"

"Absolutely none," Charlotte said. "Do you really think they even have any?"

"Probably not," she conceded. "But still. Sing?"

"We sing Monty Python," Charlotte nodded, turning a corner and narrowly avoiding a gaggle of students of various races and colors. She cleared her throat with some embarrassment.

"Er… some things in life are bad… they can really make you mad… some just make you swear and curse… come on, don't leave me hanging…"

Asamoya rolled her eyes. "When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble… give a whistle."

"And this'll help things turn out for the best… annnnd…"

In not-quite perfect harmony, they began to sing.

"Always look on the bright side of life…" Whistle. Whistle whistle sputter. "Always look on the bright side of life…"

Charlotte tried an improvised dance step, which only succeeded in making her look like a complete idiot. Asamoya giggled, tried to whistle, and failed spectacularly. It's not easy to fail spectacularly while whistling, but one way or another she managed.

"For life is quite absurd, and death's the final word… you must always face the curtain with a bow," Charlotte tried a bit of tap dancing, having taken some lessons a few years back, but discovered that on carpet all you got was a wad of static electricity. "Forget about your sin, give the audience a… ow!… grin, enjoy it! It's your last chance anyhow…"

Several tap dance attempts, one interesting try at breakdancing, and one high-speed waltz with a random (albeit startled) student later, the pair was just reaching the climax of the song.

"Life's a piece of shit… when you look at it. Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true. You'll see it's all a show, keep 'em laughing as you go! And remember that the last laugh is on you," they sang, just before hitting an ornamental Christmas tree and nearly knocking the thing over.

"What the…!" Charlotte cried, rather upset that the song had been interrupted. "…Oh."

While singing, both of them had completely forgotten to pay attention to where they went. This, of course, was a good thing, except that they were now utterly lost, and it didn't look like they were at the kitchens yet.

"Are you _sure _that was all Twist told you to do? Sing?" Asamoya asked, idly poking a brightly colored bauble.

"Yeah…" Charlotte said, thinking back to the conversation. "And… something about finding a pickle?"

"A pickle," Asamoya repeated flatly. "A _pickle._" She turned and looked at the tree. "Find a pickle… in a tree?"

Charlotte gave her a very odd look.

"Wasn't that some old German thing? You hid a pickle in the Christmas tree, and whoever found it got a prize?" she said. "…We're dealing with a very strange sense of humor here."

"So we find an actual pickle in an actual tree."

"I guess so."

Charlotte pulled down one of the branches, and peered into the tree. Asamoya took the other side of the tree, and the girls systematically searched the full length of it, and completely failed in finding anything resembling a pickle.

"Well, I'm out of bright ideas, then," Asamoya said. "You're on your own now."

Then, out of sheer dumb luck, Asamoya looked on the wall _behind _the tree. There was a little picture of a pickle.

"Um… I think I found our pickle."

"What do I do with this thing?" Charlotte asked in frustration, and jabbed a finger at the painting. She then poked it.

A miraculous thing happened that was not really all that miraculous.

The pickle moved. Then, the entire Christmas tree slid into the floor, and the section of the wall behind it moved to the side, revealing a door.

"…Right," Charlotte said. "I've had my daily dose of strangeness, now I want pie."

"Pie is good," Asamoya said.

Neither of them opened the door.

"You can go first," Charlotte said.

"No, you can," Asamoya replied.

"You go."

"No, you go."

"You."

"_You._"

"Rock, paper, scissors?"

"All right."

The two girls faced each other.

"Rock, paper, scissors…"

"Shoot!" Asamoya cried. She held out scissors.

Charlotte looked down at her hands. Paper.

"Damnation," she muttered, then smiled. "Best two out of three?"

"**_No._**"

"Darn."

Charlotte took a deep breath and cracked her knuckles. She took another breath, hesitated, and opened the door. "Here we go."

.-

.-

.-

A/n- Er… I did say that I was going to update this more frequently, didn't I? Well… I guess this was up quicker than that other chapter, eh? - Anyway, keep sendin' in those applications- I like hearing from the small group o' people that actually reads this. Oh, and Wingnut- I think Hotmail ate your application, so couldja re-send it? Thankee! Cheers!


	10. Of Pie and Unexplained Phenomena

**Chapter 10-**

**Of Pie and Unexplained Phenomena**

The door opened silently. The two girls walked cautiously in, looking around for danger or mini-Lavi. Charlotte gently closed the door behind her. She was in a short corridor that ended into a bright, larger room. Voices came from it, and they sounded busy and rushed, although muffled so that she couldn't hear specifics. Charlotte started down the hall, but stopped as she saw something very strange about a foot ahead of her. She stepped back a bit, and saw what looked like a very thin white line close to the floor. Bending down, the inspected it more closely. It was fishline. Or, in this instance, a trip-wire.

She followed it to the right wall, where the wire was attached to what she assumed was a trap.

"Asamoya? Could you come over here?"

"What is it?" Asamoya knelt down beside Charlotte.

"Are you very good at disabling traps?"

"I've never tried."

"Well," Charlotte said, "I propose that we learn really damn quick."

The girls poked and prodded at the thing for a few moments, and inadvertently set the thing off with an errant poke.

"Oh, shi-…"

There was a boom, and the world went fiery, then brilliant white, tinged with blue.

Charlotte, meanwhile, had thrown her arms over her head in a futile attempt at protecting it. She peered up through her fingers, and saw that she and Asamoya were encased in a rapidly melting barrier of ice, produced solely by Asamoya.

"Um…" Charlotte said, watching the icy barrier in amazement. "Asamoya… I think the fireball's gone…"

"I know," she replied rather softly. After a moment, the rest of the barrier melted into a very large puddle.

"That was amazing."

"Thanks," she replied. "I usually can't do something that big, but I think it's good that I made the effort."

"Um, yeah, I'd say so too," Charlotte said. "Considering, of course, that that fireball would've burnt us to ashes before we'd gotten pie."

"Heh. Yup," the half-Mystic said. "Gotta have that pie."

"Well, it's just down there," Charlotte sighed. "They can't have put any more traps in _this _corridor. It's too darn small."

They walked the rest of the way (very carefully), and peered into the larger room. They found it filled with stoves, ovens, and other appliances. Copper pots and pans hung from racks and were suspended from the ceiling, gleaming in the light that came from an undefined source. An army of people bustled around, most of them cooks, some of them maids or messengers. The two girls walked in carefully, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. They were immediately jostled on all sides by the frantic work of the kitchen staff.

"Watch it!" a purple-haired cook cried, re-balancing a tray precariously perched on one of her hands. She rushed past as Asamoya dodged out of the way, only to bump into another cook who was stirring something large and fragrant.

"Ow!"

"Move it!"

"'Outta the way!"

"Push off!"

After several moments of frantic dodging, the girls reached a relatively calm part of the kitchens. Charlotte looked to the left, and saw, somewhat to her surprise, a few tables set up in a corner. She tugged on Asamoya's sleeve, and they sat down. Then, within the space of a few seconds, (and, if they had noticed, just like in the game) a cook rushed up to them.

"What'll it be?"

"A slice of cherry pie," Charlotte said.

"Key lime for me," Asamoya added.

"All right," came the reply, along with an eyeroll. Pie wasn't exactly a top priority. The purple-haired girl left, and returned shortly after with two pieces of pie. These two pieces were the paragons of pie-ness- the cherries were a deep red and submerged in their own not-too-sweet sauce, and the key lime was moist and wonderfully flavorful. The pieces were devoured with the ravenous fury of those who really deserve their pie.

The purple-haired girl then set a piece of paper on the table. Charlotte looked at it blankly for a moment, then realized what it was. She picked it up.

It was a bill.

"That'll be fifty gold," she said. "Cash or shall we put it on your tab?"

The girls looked at her in blank stupidity, looked at each other, and said simultaneously,

"Tab."

Then their eyes widened to astonishing (and probably unhealthy) levels as they saw someone walked up behind the cook.

"Here. I'll pay it."

The figure sat down opposite the girls, dropping the money in the waitress's hand as he did so.

It was Magus.

The girls stared in disbelief. Here was their Magic teacher, sitting opposite them in the off-limits kitchens, casually ordering a café mocha. He was infamous for a foul temper and for _not _hesitating to pull a fireball on a lusting student. Now he seemed… civil. Almost chivalrous. If they didn't know his actual vaguely grumpy and not-so-vaguely sarcastic character, they'd have felt perfectly at ease in his company. They did know and they weren't comfortable.

"I must commend you on your admirable use of ice magic, Miss Asamoya," he said casually. "And you, Miss Albshire, for noticing the trip-wire. You don't know _how _many students Marle has had to resurrect because of a careless step."

The waitress (with some apparent anxiety), returned with Magus' café mocha.

"Oh, thank you."

"Um…" Asamoya said, turning slightly pinkish, "Thanks?"

"Of course," he continued, "you really _aren't _supposed to be around here. Kitchens are completely and explicitly off-limits. I'm _sure, _however, that this was a perfectly innocent mistake." There was a certain amount of delicately placed stress on that sentence. It gave the girls the impression that to say otherwise was a very stupid thing to do, indeed.

"Right," Charlotte said. "A complete accident."

"And, of course, you did _not _go to a certain student of the psychic persuasion to inquire about the location of the kitchens, either."

"Never would've _dreamed _of it, Professor."

"Indeed," he took a sip of his mocha while looking at them with a disturbing gaze. It said in very clear language, 'I know _exactly _what you're up to, but you're humoring me right now so I just might let you live if you continue to do so.'

"I think I might forget about this incident," he said. "Selective amnesia has never been my fortè, unfortunately. I may require some… assistance… in forgetting."

_Ah. So it's going to be like _thatCharlotte thought, and was terminally tempted to say this out loud.

"What kind?" she asked, instead.

"Nothing of much difficulty," he replied casually. "I would simply require you to be very watchful, and turn in an extra 'essay' to me. Nothing difficult."

"You want us to _spy?_" Asamoya cried. "On other _students?_ No. No _way. _I rather play hockey with Mini-Lavi."

"It can be arranged," Magus replied amiably. "And you, Miss Albshire? Would _you _like to play hockey with the Minis?"

"Um…" Charlotte said, looking from Asamoya to Magus and back again. She didn't want to betray other students- they could be just as bad as the Minis, and there were _definitely _more students than Mini-Lavi- but she didn't want to cross Magus, either. People who crossed Magus never got a chance to repeat the mistake.

"Er… well, I…" she dithered, stalling for time to come up with something that wouldn't get her killed or worse.

There was another surprising entrance by a slightly more homicidal character.

Miss Cerberus.

_Oh shit… _Charlotte thought as her stomach sank down around her feet. _I'm dead. _We're _dead. I should've taken my chances as the spy._

As Cerberus walked in, the crowd of cooks parted, leaving a clear path for her to go down. As she passed, they swarmed back over like the Red Sea after the Israelites.

"Cerberus," Magus said, all hint of amusement gone from his voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Look, you can talk with your little recruits later," she said. "I have to talk with you. _Now._"

Magus looked slightly puzzled, but stood and followed Cerberus to a spot in the sea of cooks. The cooks themselves left a little patch for them to stand in, and drowned out the conversation with their calls and orders.

Meanwhile, Cerberus was very unhappy.

"Magus, we have one _hell _of a problem," she said.

"What kind of problem?"

"One that could turn out to be very bad for us."

"Us, as in…"

"We who are not students."

"Explain."

"We had a few infiltrators into the Staff Section," she began. "No big deal. The Lavi got to them before they went far."

"All right."

"The problem started when we found one face-down in a pond. The other two were killed in, at least according to the Minis, what was self-defense," Cerberus explained. "From what I gathered, the students- those ones, at least- had very strangely powerful magic. Enough to hurt Magis, and he's magic-resistant. How might this have happened, eh?"

"You shouldn't be asking me," Magus replied. "_I _only require basics out of them. Ask Spekkio. He gave them the magic in the first place."

"It's not Spekkio's!" Cerberus cried. "I _know _Spekkio's magic! This ain't it! Besides, we've got a worse problem then some hyped up students, even if they're part of the problem!"

"What? For gods' sakes, just _say_ it!"

The sudden smashing of a tray of dishes drowned out her reply. By the slightly stunned and worried look on Magus' face, however, it could be discerned that it was very distressing news.

"You can't be serious…" he murmured. "That can't be right. It must have been a mistake."

"Try it for yourself if you don't believe me," she said, biting on her bottom lip. She only bit her lip like that when there was plenty to be worried about.

"It's probably just a flux," Magus said, rubbing his temples. "Such things happen on occasion. It should blow over soon."

"Blow over? Being a little bit... no, never mind, I won't say it."

"Good. We've got enough Irony hanging over us for being in a small continuum," he said. "Let's not egg it on."

"Yeah…" she muttered. "Yeah. I really hope you're right, Magus. I really do."

"You should get some coffee," he said, spinning her around by the shoulders. "And then go back to your office and, I don't know, sort applications or something. Plant a few more traps. Something to take your mind off this. I'll get to the bottom of this."

Cerberus let herself be pushed towards the door. "All right…" A cook had already brought her a large mug of her own special coffee.

With Cerberus gone and presumably busy, Magus returned to the table.

"All right. I've got a proposition to make," he said. "We have… a situation. At this point, we _need _a few people to keep an eye on the students from a more _internal_ point of view."

"I told you already, we won't spy," Asamoya said stubbornly. "We won't spy on our friends."

Magus sighed in exasperation and propped his head on one gloved hand. "Look, when I say 'we have a situation', I mean it's something that a lot of people will get into a lot of trouble for. Don't make yourself one of those people. _And, _from what I can tell, Charlotte doesn't quite agree with you."

Charlotte's face had been one of startled horror as she listened to Asamoya.

"You agree with me!" Asamoya said. "Don't you, Charlotte?"

Charlotte nodded dumbly, not exactly sure of what she might be getting into.

"I would sue my face for slander if I were you," Magus said to her. "Putting aside your ridiculously placed moral obligations… if you do this favor for us, we are prepared to offer a compensation for your actions."

"So now you're going to _bribe _us," Asamoya said flatly. Charlotte was wondering where she had gotten the courage to talk like that to Magus.

"What would change your mind?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Miss Asamoya," the mage said.

Asamoya recovered spectacularly. "I want to know what's going on. Oh, and I want free pie. And no random mauling by Minis."

"You drive a hard bargain," Magus said after a moment's consideration. "But, in light of the situation, I suppose I could divulge such information. However, you _cannot _repeat this to _anyone. _The consequences will be dire if you do so."

"Fine," she said. "Just spit it out."

There was another crash, this time from a rack of brass pots coming loose from the ceiling. They banged and clattered loudly until the last one rolled to a stop.

"Oh." Asamoya said. She looked very worried. "That's very bad."

"Of course it's very bad," Magus replied irritably. "And it explains quite a lot, wouldn't you say?"

"It explains my ice barrier," Asamoya said. "But the part about…"

"I don't know," he snapped, obviously put into a very ill mood from that line of questioning. "I'm going to test it soon. I have Cerberus' word on it, and I trust her not to panic at trifles and false alarms."

Charlotte blinked. "We have class."

"Do we get a sort of diplomatic immunity by taking this? You know, sort of a lightened homework load in light of the situation?" Asamoya asked. She was going to get all she could from this bargain. "After all, we'll need to cover a lot of ground, get into social cliques, it could take a good deal of time…"

"Don't push it, student," Magus replied acerbically, but he quickly checked his temper. "I'll see what I can do. But don't hope for much."

She shrugged. "All right. But get back to us soon. And I _definitely _want all the information you've got on this. I don't want to be left out of the know."

"Reasonable enough," Magus replied with some testiness. "But that's all. Next thing you'll be wanting rooms in the Staff Section…"

"Um…Asamoya…" Charlotte whispered, tugging on her sleeve. "_We've got class…_" She was ignored again.

"Negotiations are officially over," Magus said. "And you have class to get to, as Miss Albshire has been attempting to point out for some time. I hope you two can run very quickly." He grinned, and it was not very pleasant.

"Shit!"

The girls burst from their chairs and rushed out, Asamoya in terrified panic and Charlotte in a surreal, I-knew-it-would-happen-like-this form of calmness.

"What have we got?" Asamoya asked as they skidded past the Christmas tree that rose out of the floor.

"Um… we've got Swordplay and Fencing 101, in the field in front of the Academy, in…um, thirty seconds. Twenty-nine, now."

"Buggery," Asamoya said. "How're we supposed to get there fast enough? We're on the opposite end of the damn building!"

Charlotte smacked her upside the head. "Forget it!"

"Oh. Right," Asamoya said, rubbing her head. "I'll never get the hang of that."

Both girls closed their eyes and hoped they wouldn't hit a wall. In a second's time, they were running on grass.

"Hey! That's handy," Asamoya commented. They were all of ten feet from the group of students surrounding Crono and Frog. They loitered at the edge of the gathering, hoping to avoid any unfortunate stampedes on Crono.

After a few moments, there came a soft metallic noise somewhat like 'shhhhshnk', and a gasp from the fangirlish crowd. Charlotte and Asamoya pushed through them a bit to see what had happened. They were vaguely disappointed to find that Crono had done nothing more than draw his katana without any flourish at all.

"All right," he said rather amiably. "I think we can start class now."

All right, so no one was wet and there were no Egyptians. 'Not like the Red Sea' would probably be a more accurate description.

Not like that, you sick, twisted person.

A/n- Hey, this didn't take me too long, eh? Anyway, all you readers, there's still plenty of time to enroll in the Academy! There are also a bunch of mini-Lavi and a plethora of Moving Pillars hanging around, so feel free to ask to adopt one- you get a spiffy little image to proudly (or not) display wherever you feel like it. Ciao!


	11. A Brief Interlude with Cerberus

**Chapter 11**

**Of a Brief Interlude with Cerberus and Why Swords are Sharp**

Cerberus was dithering. Her nerves were all over the place. She was currently in her office, pacing in front of a disorganized desk, wearing a few holes in the carpet, trying to sort out a problem she wasn't supposed to worry about.

"This can_not _be happening…" she muttered. "We're a small continuum. We're not supposed to get problems like this…"  
There was a knock at her door, and Semp fluttered in.

"Cerb…" she said, closing the door behind her with a gesture, "there's a problem."

"I know!"

"We don't know how many students have realized that they've got such powerful magic," Semp continued. "The Minis have been patrolling, and haven't seen anything unusual, but we're still preparing for a mob. If they decide to attack or something…"

"I know," Cerberus said wearily. "I know. Magus said he'd get to the bottom of it."

"And you trust him?"

"With my life."

Semp sighed. "But you're not going to leave it just to him, are you?"

"Of course not," the Assistant Head Mistress replied. "I'm just not sure what to do yet."

"Spies?"

"Magus found them."

"We've already got patrols, and the last surveillance equipment we put in there, well… er…" the fairy trailed off.

"I know. It went boom," Cerberus finished. "We've got to trust in these… spies Magus has gotten. He thinks they're reliable."

"He'd better be really damn sure they are," Semp said. She fluttered back towards the door, opened it, and was gone.

Cerberus sunk down into her comfy office chair, and put her head in her hands.

"I _know…_"

Meanwhile…

"Now, what Miss Racquel has just demonstrated was exactly how _not _to try to attack someone with a sword that is far too heavy," Crono explained, gesturing to the stunned and bruised form of Raquel on the ground. The aforementioned sword was currently half an inch away from her head, stuck about two feet into the soil.

Raquel was gibbering very slightly.

"Perhaps Miss Albshire would like an attempt?" Frog pulled the sword out of the ground. "I daresay another weapon would be more appropriate, however."

"Um… yeah…" Charlotte stepped forward.

"Choose thine own weapon, Miss Albshire," Frog prompted. He gestured towards a rack of swords, daggers, knives, and other pointy-bladed weaponry, behind which there was also a large stack of what looked like either staves or very large sticks.

There was a really awesome looking sword there, with a long blade and a hilt studded with emeralds. She picked it up, and realized that she could just about lift it with two hands and do absolutely nothing else. She put it back down.

The sword next to it was a rapier of some sort, with a plain guard and a long, very sharp blade. It wasn't very heavy, and Charlotte gave it a few experimental swipes through the air before deciding she actually kind of liked it. It was pretty.

"All right," Crono said, holding his katana at the ready. "Come on, now. Let's see if you can even use the thing."

Charlotte shrugged, and raised the rapier. After a moment, she charged, and thrust at Crono.

There was a clash, a moment of confusion, and Charlotte found herself on the ground with the rapier a few feet away, and the sharp edge of a katana at her throat.

"This is why," Crono was explaining to the rest of the class, "we don't charge at an opponent. I could easily tell what Miss Albshire was going to do, and thus was able to disarm her very quickly."

"Ow," Charlotte said softly from the ground.

"Not bad, though, for somebody's who's never used a sword before," he smiled rather charmingly, and helped her up.

"Now, try it again, but use some _tact _this time," he instructed. He didn't even have his katana at the ready.

"Um…right…" Charlotte muttered. She couldn't really be subtle with _conversations _let alone a piece of pointy metal. What exactly was she supposed to do, anyway? Try to strike up a conversation and then discreetly stab him in the side?

Good judgement told her to stop being silly and watch the bastard with the sword, moron.

It was at this most opportune moment that Charlotte realized Crono had taken the initiative, and was coming at her with a strike she most certainly had no idea how to parry. In a fit of instinctive reflexes, she dove to the side, avoiding the sword very narrowly. Unfortunately, she was also in no position to dodge his _next_ attack, in which he was able to knock the rapier right out of her hand and put his blade against her throat.

"I'm not exactly sure what you were trying to do," he said, "but at least you've got part of the idea."

Charlotte brightened. "I did?"

"Yeah. Don't get hit."

"Oh."

Crono reached down to help her up again, and Charlotte's Inner Fangirl went mad. The inner dialogue went something like:

_He's so cute he's so cute he's so cute he's so cute he's so cute! _the fangirl raved.

Shut up, the sane portion of her said. If I try anything, Marle will kill me.

_But he's so cute he's so cuteeee!_

And Marle has pointy crossbow bolts and good aim. No.

_But Marle's not here. You are. And he's so close… _the fangirl wheedled, surprisingly coherent.

Um… the sane portion of her was running out of ideas. Crap.

"Um… Miss Albshire?"

Charlotte jolted out of her inner dialogue to realize she had been staring at him for the past few minutes, and immediately blushed very deeply, and got to her feet.

"Er… did you get hit on the head?" Crono asked her.

"I'm all right," she muttered, picking up the rapier and heading back to the crowd of students with acute embarrassment.

"Perhaps Miss Stefani is eager for the attempt?" Frog said with an amphibian smile that was… disturbing. Mirabella Stefani, had been talking animatedly to one of the other students, and immediately froze after hearing Frog.

"Um…" she glanced around nervously, definitely looking for an escape.

"Don't worry," Crono said, "You'll be the last victim- er, I mean, _demonstration._"

"How comforting," she grumbled, and snatched a _spear _off the rack, apparently not caring what weapon she got.

"I think thou will hurt thyself," Frog said to her, drawing the Masamune.

"Whatever," Mirabella replied, jumping from one foot to the other. She tried thrusting the thing at the amphibian, but he knocked the point down easily. Mirabella fell forwards, going with the heavy spear, and Frog brought the hilt of the Masamune down with a crunch on her hands. She shouted, dropped the spear, and apparently tried to stuff both busted hands in her mouth at the same time.

"I did warn thee," Frog said with a shrug.

Mirabella said something completely incoherent since her hands were still in her mouth, but it was probably better that no one could understand it.

"Well, despite all the fun we're having here," Crono said with a smile, "I think we should pair up and start a bit of real teaching."

"What the crap were you doing before, then!" someone from the back of the class cried.

"That," Crono replied, "was simply beating several kinds of crap out of all of you. Purely for demonstrative purposes, of course. …And to show you people that sword fighting is not simply waving about a bit of metal and hoping you don't put out an eye."

There was a moment of complete silence.

"Now, pair up, the lot of you," he said, waving his hands at them. The crowd gradually shuffled into pairs. Charlotte and Asamoya found themselves some room over to the left, and watched with much curiosity to see what else would happen.

"Right. One of you from each group come up and get a stick," Crono instructed, "and then we'll start with a few basic thrusts and parries."

Charlotte pushed her way through the crowd of students to grab two sticks, and then started back towards Asamoya. She just managed to catch the end of a conspiratorial whisper between two students as she passed.

"Hey… come down to classroom 3B later. Mel found something…"

_Hmmmm… _went Charlotte's brain. She tossed a stick to Asamoya as soon as she was close enough, and then hurriedly whispered what she had heard.

"…I think we should check it out," Asamoya replied.

"Right," Charlotte whispered back. "Do you really think it's anything important, though?"

"Who knows?" Asamoya shrugged. "Classroom 3B… I think that's the one that only sometimes is."

"Only is what?" Charlotte gave her a very strange look.

"I mean, it only exists at certain specific times," Asamoya replied in a whisper. "They probably just found something silly in it. Things come back with it after it disappears. Just bits and pieces, really."

Right in the middle of their conversation, there came two hard swipes to the back of the head with a stick. Both girls yelped and clutched their heads, and turned to face the large, aqueous eyes of Frog.

"'Twould do the two of thee a world of good to _pay attention._" It was amazing how much of a threat could be shoved into so few words by someone of a very amphibious persuasion.

The rest of the class was, as Crono had mentioned, about thrusts and parries. However, he hadn't counted on the sheer lack of hand-eye coordination present among his students. He was forced to end the lesson when Mirabella ended up the only person standing amid a group of very concussed and very unfortunate girls. Her stick was very quickly confiscated before she could inflict any more damage (but not before she thwacked Frog. Unfortunately for her, Masumune and Glene were watching the whole thing, and, simply put, thwacked her back much harder.)

With the lesson over, the bruised and bloodied students tossed their sticks back in a stack and shuffled zombie-like off towards wherever they happened to be going. Charlotte and Asamoya were among the last to drop off their sticks. Charlotte was poking rather dismally at one of her bruises (courtesy of Mirabella) when Crono tapped her on the shoulder.

"You know… this might help," he said pleasantly, and handed to her a small bottle of something tinted slightly blue. Asamoya peered over Charlotte's shoulder at it.

"Er… what is it?" she asked (Charlotte having gone into a lust object-induced trance).

"A tonic," Crono replied. "We all know how you two are helping us out, so I thought you might need some. Take care of yourselves, all right?" He turned, and left with an amiable wave goodbye.

"Well, that's certainly helpful," Asamoya said, and tried to take the tonic from Charlotte. It was a good deal harder than she expected, since Charlotte stubbornly would not let go of it.

"Oh, come on! You can keep the damn bottle, then!"

Charlotte gave Asamoya a slightly suspicious look and, her inner fangirl wailing, handed over the bottle.

"You damn silly fangirl," Asamoya grumbled, and drank some of the tonic. No sooner had she swallowed than she began to gag. The taste was absolutely _awful._

"It tastes like _gym socks_," she sputtered. "Oh, god, _please _tell me I have some Altoids or something…" She began to dig through her pockets, and, to her dismay, did not find any breath mints.

"Oh, it can't be _that _bad," Charlotte said with an eyeroll. She took a swig of it as well, and nearly lost her lunch. "Gah… never mind, it _is_ that bad…" She shoved the rest of the drink into her pocket for some other time.

"Let's get to the Great Hall, maybe we can grab some really strong coffee or something…"

The two girls closed their eyes and started running. By the time they opened them, they had appeared in front of the doors to the Hall, and surprised many an unsuspecting student.

Within a few minutes, the two girls were seated at a table, gulping down coffee scalding hot as though their lives depended on it. This was an overstatement, but not by very much.

"So where's this classroom, exactly?" Charlotte asked between gulps.

"Dunno."

Charlotte nodded. What did it matter, anyway? They would just use their little trick and take the easy way around. It was so nice and convenient- almost too nice and convenient.

Asamoya presently set down her mug (which was completely drained of coffee) and sighed rather happily.

"That is _so _much better."

Charlotte agreed. "I almost feel bad for making those guys drink so many of these."

"I know what you mean," Asamoya replied, standing and pushing in her chair. "I bet the rest of the stuff we've fed them in those games doesn't taste any better."

So saying, the two girls exited the Great Hall with considerably less comment than with which they had entered. They headed down the hallway in a random direction, discussing the properties of tonics and precisely why anyone would make a healing potion with a taste that could kill a dragon.

_A/n- Well, that only took a very ridiculous amount of time to get up. - Sorry, guys. I recently got a new computer (!) and I've been transferring an obscenely large amount of junk onto it from the old one. I only got this onto it a few days ago, and, well…yeah. Look for more updates in the reasonably near future! Ciao._


	12. Of Small Oversights in Various Forms

**Chapter 12**

** Of Small Oversights in Various Forms**

Classroom 3B only sometimes was.

This statement is somewhat misleading, however. Classroom 3B always _is_- it just sometimes _is _somewhere else. It does not simply disappear into the aether, only to reappear on a whim. It generally exists in places with severe spatial distortion, or in areas with great magical influence. Like the Moving Pillars throughout the Academy, Classroom 3B is a kind of reality-balancer. It moves when other things can't (or won't), so that other things won't get broken, like the fabric of the universe. It has been previously mentioned that OFAC is caught in quite a predicament- teetering dangerously on the edge of time and reality, its existence secured only by a titanic effort from the Powers That Be, and from a touch of influence from lesser beings.

Nevertheless, this balance is so precarious that, metaphorically speaking, it could be knocked on its ass by a stiff breeze.

Thus, we return to Classroom 3B.

The door to the classroom was somewhere in the Southern Wing of the Academy. For most people it would be difficult to find, but for Charlotte and Asamoya, it was rather simple. They closed their eyes, sang a song, and hoped they wouldn't hit a wall. (They did, but by that time they were already where they needed to be, so it was all right.)

"Aagh," Charlotte grumbled, rubbing her sore head. "Well, I guess this is it."

The pair stood in front of a large and imposing door. It was made of wrought iron, with eldritch and slightly nasty-looking figures and shapes engraved in the metal. It glowered from the pleasant crème-colored walls like an angry demon. The doorframe also had letters engraved into it in a gothic style…

"'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'?" Charlotte read. "Yeesh. Cryptic."

"Yup. Slightly cliché, too," Asamoya said. "Poor Dante, getting his gate inscription ripped off."

"_Divine Comedy, _right?" Charlotte said, grabbing the twisted iron handle. "I remember _The Inferno _was good, but _Purgatory _and _Paradise _were a little… um…"

"Purgatory was a bunch of dead blokes whining, and Paradise was hardcore church, yes," Asamoya replied. Charlotte nodded, and pulled the door open. It swung heavily, like a weighted pendulum, and moved on silent hinges. The two girls stepped warily across the threshold, into the large room within. They blinked as a startling scene met their eyes.

"What the hell is this?" Charlotte said, staring around her.

The whole room looked like a bag of holding turned inside out. The place was filled with unrelated objects- a Persian rug beneath an overused chemistry table, while on said table was not chemistry equipment but mountainous stacks of newspaper dating back to the mid-1800's. A multitude of clocks scattered the paisley-covered walls, some of them dripping á la _Persistence of Memory_. A ship walked around on blue legs in a bottle set on a _Shogi _table in one corner, while television from the 1960's set against the back wall showed Twilight Zone reruns to a small crowd of students sitting on bean bags and hot pink pillows shaped like the Rocky Horror lips. Several books pulled themselves off their glass shelves and switched places with others, apparently to get a better view of the show. Some of them were attached to their shelves with heavy iron chains, and when they opened their pages, they seemed to have teeth. The room as a whole was dominated by the large stone fireplace that lit and warmed it, with a pile of logs on its hearth. A small fire glowered between two massive logs, looking as though it were about to snuff out.

"Holy crap…" Asamoya murmured, venturing further into the strange room. She looked down and stared at the floor for a moment. "Hey, Char, look at this!"

Charlotte walked over, and looked down as well. "…Why is the Sistine Chapel ceiling on the floor?"

Asamoya shrugged, and started over towards the group around the TV. "Hey, 'To Serve Man'. That was a good episode."

A few of the students turned back to face her. Several of them shushed her, and turned back to the television just as Pat ran up towards Michael to shout, "It's a _cookbook!_" as he was taken away in the alien spaceship. Talk broke out among all of the students as the narrator closed the episode: _"It's tonight's bill of fare in… The Twilight Zone". _

"I liked 'A Kind of Stopwatch' myself," Charlotte said, leaning on the newspaper-infested table. "Although 'Perchance to Dream' is my favorite."

One of the girls turned on her beanbag chair and said, "Oh! That's the one with the guy who had the heart condition and thought that the carnival girl was gonna kill him…"

"So he went to the psychiatrist about it and the receptionist looked just like her, so he jumped out the window…" Charlotte continued with some excitement.

"And it ends up that he had just fallen asleep and gave himself a heart attack because of the dream!" They finished together and laughed.

"Yeah, that was a good one," the girl said, giggling a bit.

"Nah, the one with the hitchhiker was better," another girl (she had large cat ears) said. An argument broke out between her and three other students, each claiming that different episodes were best.

The first girl (the one who had talked about 'Perchance to Dream') stood up and pushed some of her hair out of her face before approaching Charlotte.

"I'm Mel," she said, and held out a hand.

"Charlotte Albshire," Charlotte replied, and shook the hand. "This is Asamoya."

"Pleased t'meet ya," Mel said. "I guess you came to see what's here, right?"

"Well, sort of," Charlotte answered, picking a bit at her sleeve. "How'd you know there was going to be The Twilight Zone, anyway?"

"Oh, it's been here for a few days now," Mel said, ducking as a pink lips pillow hurtled over her head. Behind her, some of the students were waging an all-out pillow war, and were taking no prisoners.

"I wonder where it came back from," Asamoya said, looking at the eccentric collection of objects.

Mel shrugged. "Who knows? Wherever it was, they really liked clocks and sci-fi TV."

As she said this, a clock dripped upwards from one wall onto the ceiling, which just so happened to look like the Sistine Chapel floor.

"This place is just _weird_," Charlotte commented, pushing a stack of newspapers out of the way so she could sit on the table.

"Isn't it great?" Mel said with a bright smile.

"Is there a fridge?" Asamoya asked. "If there's food, I might be willing to let the weirdness slide."

"Yeah, it's past the third bookshelf and to the left. It's got a nutcracker on it, you can't miss it. But the books bite, so be careful."

"Yeesh. Did this thing stop off in Discworld, or something?" Charlotte said, picking up a newspaper. "This is from _The Ankh-Morpork Times_. 'The truth will make you fresh'." She grabbed another. "And this one's from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. How the hell do you get a newspaper from _Betelgeuse?_"

"Is it Betelgeuse Seven?" Mel asked, peering over Charlotte's shoulder.

"I dunno. Maybe. It's written in these spiky things." She turned the paper towards Mel, and pointed to the spiky writing it was covered in.

"Does it say what a Hrung is, and why it would choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven?"

"Possibly. I can't read Betelgeusian."

"I can see how that's a problem," Mel said.

There was, suddenly, the sound of flapping pages, a shriek, and a papery thud. A few moments later, Asamoya walked into sight dragging a flailing book behind her on a chain. She tossed the offending book into a corner (it fluttered off towards its shelf, shedding a few loose pages at it went), a piece of reasonably fresh pizza in her hand.

"Damn books. Where's an orangutan when you need one?" she said, gesticulating with her pizza. "The things were about to take my head off, I swear."

"Well, they're not really _strong_ books. Although the _Hamlet_ one can be poisonous if it's open to the bit where Hamlet and Laertes snuff it," Mel said.

"I actually think it might've been _Moby Dick_."

"Oh. That one's just big and a pain in the ass."

Then, from the pillow-war, the cat-girl shouted back, "Hey, Mel, the fire's going out! Couldja toss something for it?" She was promptly concussed from a Rocky Horror lips pillow swung at high velocity.

"Yeesh," Mel grumbled. She walked over to the fireplace, grabbed one of the logs, and tossed it in. As she did so, the fire pulled itself up from the ashes and snatched the log with arms that were sullenly glowing.

"It's about time you thought about me," the fire said heatedly. "I was about to go _out._"

"Shove it, Xanthus," she replied, and tossed another log at him.

(Meanwhile, Charlotte and Asamoya did a double-take at what was essentially talking embers.)

"Oh, sure, because _I'm _the one slacking off here," he said, catching the next log and resting on it as it began to char. "_I _only heat the place and keep it lit and power that silly television you're all enjoying, thank you, and there's a _Dr. Who_ marathon on channel four, which is far better than old _Twilight Zone _reruns. How silly of me, of _course _I'm wrong. Just like I'm wrong about that twenty page essay you're supposed to be writing."

"Shit! Where's the rubric for it?" Mel gasped, having obviously forgotten about the paper. She began to search near the fireplace for it, while Charlotte and Asamoya glanced about in a rather unhelpful attempt at finding it.

"Well, it powered your television for about three seconds an hour ago," Xanthus replied acerbically, sinking further into his pile of kindling, "after I digested it along with the dusty, disgusting newspaper you gave me. I quote, "This stuff's not worth anything, right?". I stand by your previous statement- it wasn't worth anything. You weren't going to do it anyway."

"Xanthus!" Mel cried, turning to the fire-demon in anger.

"Am I wrong?"

"Yes!"

"No, he's not!" one of the girls commented, collapsing onto a pillow after the completion of a most vicious battle. "It's due in a half-hour, you'd never get it done."

"That doesn't matter!" Mel said. "Don't agree with him."

Charlotte and Asamoya raised their eyebrows and exchanged a few slightly puzzled glances.

"It doesn't mean he's wrong, or that Kaede-chan is," another one said, slumping backwards onto the floor.

"Ravenwing!" Mel cried, looking betrayed.

"Well, it's true, Mel," Kaede replied, tracing a pattern on the floor with one finger. "You weren't going to do it, and it's not Xanthus' fault that it got burned up… you _did _toss it to him, and he's fire and all…"

Asamoya, meanwhile, turned to Charlotte and whispered, "These people are really crazy."

"I know," Charlotte whispered back. "I don't think this is what we're supposed to look for."

"Me neither."

"I think we should get the crap out of here, before clocks drip on us and we go real crazy, too."

"Yeah."

The two girls glanced at each other, then back at the group of girls (and one fire-demon). With a determined nod, they both said "Gotta go!" at once, and bolted for the door.

They heard Mel shout, "Hey, where are you going?" just as they slammed the door behind them, closed their eyes, and dashed away.

Neither of them realized later that they couldn't remember exactly what Mel and her friends looked like.

Meanwhile…

"I still think you should tell someone else."

"I'm not going to!"

"Why not? I mean, other universities have had a few problems. No one's ever held anything against them for asking for help."

"Semp, I'm not going to. This is something I can handle myself. There's no need to get anybody else involved."

Cerberus was currently seated at her desk, with coffee cups piling high amid the paperwork scattered across the floor. Always in favor of the 'clean desk' policy, she had simply shifted everything to a slightly lower position.

Sempronia landed on Cerberus' desk and sat down on the edge, letting her legs dangle. "So you've got some sort of idea about what you're going to do?"

"Sort of," Cerberus said, and stood. "I've got a few things to check up on, though." She started out of her office.

"Where are you going?"

"Up."

There was a brief pause.

"Up? As in… _up?_" the fairy gave Cerberus a slightly startled look. "And you actually expect to get answers there?"

"I'll get something," Cerberus replied. "Not much, but something." With that, she was out the door.

She walked through the Staff Section, which was empty of people; no one was mercilessly grading papers, no one was furiously planning the next lesson and coming up with no ideas, no one was raiding the cabinet for Cerberus' supply of Ethiopian coffee (and not finding it). Everything was very still, and very quiet, and almost a little bit sad. This place was supposed to be… fuller. No ghost town in the world could quite compare to the sudden emptiness that encompassed this one silent room.

Somewhere, there was the distant echo of familiar voices.

She shivered briefly as she walked up a flight of stairs. These were not the ones that led into the rest of the Academy, however- they led to an entirely different place. _This _place did not exist, and she was the only person who had the key.

It sounds like those are mutually exclusive- a key to a room that does not exist.

It really isn't.

Cerberus, the Assistant Head Mistress, took out an iron key from her pocket and turned it in the lock of an unimpressive wooden door. If anyone had cared to look closely at the key, they might have noticed the faded letters engraved on it spelled out 'acta erit fabula'.

The drama will be acted.

And the door swung open.

Elsewhere…

Charlotte felt a sharp prick on her thigh. She pulled out her schedule from the recesses of her pocket.

_In 5 Minutes: The Universe Is a Lot More Complicated Than You Think: On Paradoxes, Time Travel, and Why You Don't Do Either;  
Classroom 42; Profs. Lucca and Gaspar. _

Asamoya, meanwhile, pulled hers out as well.

_In 5 Minutes: Being Tragically Noble Does Not Mean Being Damn Stupid; Classroom 358; Profs. Sir Cyrus, Frog, and Schala._

"I guess we'll meet up after classes, then," Charlotte said, peering over at Asamoya's schedule. "Maybe we'll find something to look into after that."

"Yeah," Asamoya said with a nod. "This was a little bit… silly. And I'm using 'silly' as a euphemism for 'really damn weird'."

Charlotte giggled a bit, and started walking down the hallway they were in. It happened to be in the Eastern Wing, actually not far from the dorms that had been demolished in the beginning of the year, but neither of them really knew that. It didn't matter anyway, because they could be wherever they wanted whenever they wanted by closing their eyes and sprinting.

"Let's meet after class in the Great Hall," Asamoya said as they began to jog. "We can see what we've figured out then."  
"Sounds good to me," Charlotte replied. "See you later!" Both girls broke into a run and closed their eyes.  
And neither could see what was in front of them.

A/n- Yes, I sort of lied and this took a looong while to get up. It happens. These things take a surprising amount of planning, I must say. But anyway… new applicants are always welcome, as are new adoptions. And, in case you didn't know, I got your application on the Lj, Wingnut. Thanks! Ciao, me hearties! (Yo ho!)


End file.
